Rwanda-DRC: FARDC judged incompetent and mediocre
Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Olivier Nduhungirehe has dismissed allegations by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) regarding the capture of a Rwandan soldier by the Congolese army. He described the FARDC’s attitude as incompetent and mediocre.
Minister Olivier Jean Patrick Nduhungirehe was reacting to recent statements by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC), which claimed to have captured a soldier of the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) in Congo.
Nduhungirehe strongly denied the accusations. According to him, the FARDC are not only incompetent but also mediocre in spreading false information.
“Clearly the FARDC, besides being incompetent in the theatre of operations, are also mediocre in the propagation of FakeNews. Thus, the Congolese army presents us with a so-called soldier of the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) who does not know his unit or his commander, and who cannot provide his registration number within the Rwandan army,” declared Nduhungirehe on his site X.
“Clearly, the FARDC, failing to be a war machine on the ground, have become a factory for manufacturing FakeNews!” he added.
Minister Nduhungirehe also noted major contradictions in the origins of the captured individual. The localities of the so-called Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) soldier cited as his origin by the FARDC, exist only in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and not in Rwanda. Minister Nduhungirehe was referring to the “Murenge group” and “Kazabi territory”.
The Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation also took the opportunity to point out that Rwanda is divided into districts, sectors, cells and villages. He stressed that none of them correspond to these names.
Olivier Nduhungirehe also recalled a previous similar case, which occurred in February of this year. On February 16, 2024, the FARDC spokesperson, Colonel Guillaume Ndjike, presented an individual named Abouba Ndayambaje as an RDF soldier captured on Congolese territory. Guillaume Ndjike said that this so-called RDF soldier was from “a place called Kayonza”.
This statement by Minister Nduhungirehe comes after the Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) rejected the FARDC allegations.
The Rwandan government has consistently said that Rwanda is not involved in the fighting between the M23 rebel group and the FARDC and its allies in eastern DRC. Rwanda also accuses the FARDC of harboring and supporting the FDLR, a genocidaire militia implicated in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
